Nanoindentation is a method to quantitatively measure mechanical properties, such as elastic modulus and hardness, of materials at nanometer length scale using depth sensing indentation technique. In nanoindentation, a nanoindenter capable of determining the loading force and displacement is used Typically, a force employed in nanoindentation is less than 10 mN, with a typical displacement range being smaller than 10 μm, and with a noise level typically being better than 1 nm root mean squared (rms). The force and displacement data are used to determine a sample's mechanical properties. For sample property estimation a nanoindenter is integrated with a characterized indenter tip which has known geometry and known mechanical properties.
One of the emerging nanomechanical characterization techniques is quantitative transmission electron microscopy (TEM) in-situ mechanical testing. This testing method enables monitoring of the deformation of a sample in real time while measuring the quantitative mechanical data. Coupling a nanomechanical system with TEM imaging allows researchers to study structure property correlation and the influence of pre-existing defects on the mechanical response of materials. In addition to imaging, selected-area diffraction can be used to determine sample orientation and loading direction influence on mechanical response. Moreover, with in-situ mechanical testing, the deformation can be viewed in real-time rather than “post mortem”. Performing TEM in-situ nanomechanical testing can provide unambiguous differentiation between the many possible causes of force or displacement transients which may include dislocation bursts, phase transformations, shear banding or fracture onset. Nanomechanical testing at elevated temperature is an important part of material characterization for materials having phase changes or variant mechanical properties as the temperature increases. Some of the applications of the high temperature nanomechanical test are glass transition temperature identification of polymeric and rubber materials, phase transformations of low temperature metals and shape memory alloys, study of biological samples at body temperature, simulated and accelerated thermal aging studies, accelerated material creep studies, and time-temperature-superposition curve plotting of polymers.